To investigate the effect of knee-chest position on exhaust and defecation of gynecologic diseases patients after laparoscopic surgery.

This quasi-experiment trail was conducted between July 2016 to May 2017, in a birth control ward at an obstetrics and gynecology hospital in Beijing, China. The study included a total of 258 patients who had gynecological benign diseases and received gynecological laparoscopic surgery. Participants were recruited in the trail by using a convenient sampling method with 130 patients who received gynecological laparoscopic surgery from July 2016 to December 2016 in the experimental group (on the basis of routine care, patients preformed a knee-chest position intervention after 6 hours of the surgery) and 128 patients who received gynecologic laparoscopic surgery between January 2017 and May 2017 in the control group (patients received a routine care). The primary end point was the postoperative anal exhaust.

The ambulation rate before post-operative ventilation of the experimental group was 21.5% (28/130) less than that of the control group (91.4%, 117/128). The difference was statistically significant (χ²=127.903, P<0.01). The incidence of abdominal distension after operation was 0, lower than that of the control group 7.0% (9/128), the difference was statistically significant (χ²=9.471, P<0.01). The postoperative exhaust time and defecation time of the experimental group was (8.17 ± 2.88) h,(27.86 ± 4.29) h, earlier than that of the control group, (21.24 ± 5.90) h,(38.69 ± 7.73) h, and the differences were statistically significant (t=22.580, 13.885, P<0.01).

Postoperative knee-chest position significantly improved the exhaust and defecation of patients with gynecological benign disease after laparoscopic surgery.

Knee-chest position; Laparoscopic surgery; Gynecology; Anal exhaust